First off you have to worry about the home front. On setting up your game you have to align yourself to a political faction on earth. If your chosen party is in power you reap additional benefits fitting the faction. If through over taxing or neglect of social issues your party loses power then you lose these advantages. Keeping the population happy has some real benefits. If the population get too unhappy (or has been encouraged to do so through espionage) then they are more likely to jump ship from your empire entirely

On a galaxy wide scale there is also a regular senate of the main alien races and here depending on the amount of influence points you have you can vote on laws that have effect galaxy wide. These can limit such things as how many trade routes each civilization has.

Diplomacy is also a big issue in this game as depending on your alignment and your diplomacy skills some races will be friends while others want to eat you. This is not just a scripted affair as because of the AI they are not averse to bluffing during negotiations. Alliances and treaties are hard to establish and tend to take a considerable time to build up and nurture. Unlike other games where you can change alliances quite readily with little or no penalty, here achieving a treaty is a achievement and challenge in itself.

One aspect that disappoints in the game is the combat. This is turn based in line with the rest of the game, however it is very simplistic with it being decided on a factor of defensive and attack values with some luck thrown in as well. There is no way in which to win battles on a tactical basis. Largely it's about who has the most at the right spot at the right time. Combat is resolved on the main map and visually is also pretty basic. We know the game is not a combat simulation however some more involvement in the battles (or an option to do so) would have really given this game a perfect score for us. Units can be stacked and combined into fleets and when parked near Starbases they can also gain additional attack and defence bonuses.

The technology tree development - although very comprehensive - is at first not particularly intuitive and it's hard to determine where you need to put your research dollars for their best advantage. New and better weapons increase attack and defence values however they only have a limited effect visually in the game during combat. Some technologies seem to accrue no early benefits and little info is given on what further developments in a particular area might bring you. Although realistic to a certain extent sometimes it can be frustrating on what choice to make.

Overriding all of this is a background of random events happening that can have a marked effect on the game. Often you are given choices on how you react to these and the consequences can dictate how other races feel about you. There are hundreds of these and this makes each game very different.

There are 5 ways in which you can win the game:-

Conquest

Not as easy as it sounds. To be really good at this you need to have an evil alignment and the good guys tend to quickly ally themselves against you.

Technological

The hardest. You have to survive long enough to research a technology that will allow humans to transcend to higher being.

Politically

When you and your allied mates dominate the galaxy. Given the difficulty in gaining alliances this is also a tough one to achieve

Culturally

Where the human race's culture is the most popular, a sort of hearts and minds win.

Each is achievable with effort and again depending on what your end game is will also dictate how you initially set up your attributes.

The graphics as we have said are 2D and although nothing spectacular are adequate for the style of game play. Menus and windows are largely intuitive to use (just as well considering the overly thin manual). The sound is great and just in case you get bored with it you can use an application to import additional MP3's tunes of all your favourites (Wiggles anybody?)

Galactic Civilizations is a single player game however you have access to the Metaverse (once you register your game) where you can post your scores and also provide details on how you did it. These are used to ever improve the AI with the end goal of making it as human like as possible.